Bill Branham’s
Copeland Road development
got six minutes of discussion, the longest in yesterday morning’s Work Session,
with others of the seven rezonings also getting discussion,
plus, surprisingly, the
proposed VOCA grant, because the outgoing DA spoke.
They vote tonight at 5:30 PM.
I would like to compliment the Commissioners on asking questions and
having discussion in the Work Session.
Even ever-silent Joyce Evans spoke up about
the MIDS on-call bus system grant re-application.

The soil and water ordinance on the agenda at the Lowndes County Commission this morning: PDF.

It looks to be, as usual, the minimum required by state law.
For example, it mentions rivers only in reference to specific state laws,
without naming any of the Withlacoochee, Little, Alapaha, or Alapahoochee Rivers.
And its only mention of pipe is that owners of sections of small trout streams can pipe them through their property.

Thanks to Sabrina Denson for returning this document the same day as the request Gretchen made.

-jsq

Investigative reporting costs money, for open records requests, copying, web hosting, gasoline, and cameras, and with sufficient funds we can pay students to do further research. You can donate to LAKE today!

Investigative reporting costs money, for open records requests, copying, web hosting, gasoline, and cameras, and with sufficient funds we can pay students to do further research. You can donate to LAKE today!

Thank you Commissioner Demarcus Marshall
for voting no.
Calling it
“a good business decision”, the CEO of Waller Heating and Air
lauded the others for voting to sell county land for a pittance to a company from Houston, Texas, nevermind their resolution of a year ago.
We thought we elected them to represent the people of Lowndes County,
and we thought they did
back in December 2014 when they unanimously voted
“the Lowndes County Board of Commissioners opposes the construction of the Sabal Trail pipeline in any portion of Lowndes County.”
But at least one of them (“Wisenbaker) didn’t even remember that the county voted to oppose Sabal Trail.
Apparently most of them concur with what the County Engineer said about landowners who have not taken
Sabal Trail’s money, “I don’t know who they are.”

Update 2016-01-28:WCTV report, plus Gret chen’s question: “Is less than 50 cents per person in Lowndes County enough to risk drinking water for all?”

There is no reason our only county-wide elected government should rush to take a pittance from a company from Houston, Texas for an easement through the closed landfill toxic waste site that would risk our drinking water and enable more easement takings from local landowners.
On the front page of today’s VDT the County Clerk contradicted what Lowndes County Chairman Bill Slaughter has written repeatedly to FERC, that he and the Commission represent “Citizens of Lowndes County”.
She also didn’t mention the GA-EPD permit for any work within that landfill that
the Chairman previously demanded from Sabal Trail, nor the multiple state other and federal permits Sabal Trail does not have.
Although it’s still not on the published agenda,
the Commissioners have an opportunity tonight to vote to support their
own unanimous resolution of December 2014 against Sabal Trail.

I’m thankful we’re already on the way to a clean energy future,
with more jobs, less expense than doing nothing, no new nukes, no coal at all,
much less natural gas, no need for any new pipelines,
better health, clean air and water, and profit.
The COP meeting in Paris can do what it will, and we can still make a better world and profit by it.
We’re already doing it, with solar and wind power, energy efficiency and conservation,

The IMF calls the revelation “shocking” and says the
figure is an “extremely robust” estimate of the true
cost of fossil fuels. The $5.3tn subsidy estimated for 2015 is
greater than the total health spending of all the world’s
governments.

The vast sum is largely due to polluters not paying the costs
imposed on governments by the burning of coal, oil and gas. These
include Continue reading →